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‘snowflake.’ Depending on requirements, it could be configured to provide dockage for a flotilla of medium-sized warships or accommodation for as many as eight companies of Marines.
    Station Ares appeared to have plumped for the half-and-half option, its facilities equally divided between dorms and marinas. Dev counted a dozen ships in all, from corvettes to nippy little fast-attack craft. All sported the chiselled, angular design that minimised radar cross-section almost to zero.
    A gunboat had been launched to greet the Reckless Abandon , stabbing the darkness with a searchlight.
    “Ahoy, there,” said an amplified voice. “Follow us in.”
    The gunboat spun about, and Handler trailed obediently after it.
    They moored and disembarked, to be met by a welcoming committee of three Marines. The highest-ranking was First Lieutenant Sigursdottir, who snapped them a salute that was crisp, curt and, because they were civilians, just that little bit contemptuous.
    “You have permission to come aboard Station Ares, gentlemen,” she said. “Apologies for firing on you just now. You were zooming in fast and we’re a mite defensive at the moment. It’s a good thing you saw sense and halted. If you hadn’t, we might have blown you out of the water.”
    “Itchy trigger fingers, huh?” said Dev.
    “Afraid so. The situation on Triton being as it is, we’re in a shoot-first-ask-questions-later frame of mind.”
    Sigursdottir was no more than a metre and a half tall, but somehow made up for it with an erect bearing, as though she felt there was no one she couldn’t see eye-to-eye with. She had classic Nordic features – lofty cheekbones, narrow eyes, ash-blonde hair – and her sea-camo battledress barely disguised the bulges of a powerful, athletic physique. Like many a Marine, she looked as though she could bench-press her own bodyweight without breaking a sweat.
    Dev was ever so slightly smitten.
    “If you’ll walk this way...”
    He and Handler fell in behind Sigursdottir, who marched them to the snowflake’s axis at a fast lick. The other two Marines took the rear, carrying their rifles in their hands rather than slung over their shoulders.
    This spoke to Dev about the general nervousness at the base as loudly as the artillery shell had. A pair of unarmed and apparently harmless friendlies were being treated with the same protocols as captive enemy combatants. He imagined that were he and Handler to step out of line, they might expect a bullet in the face. Or, just as likely, in the back.
    They entered a building that, like every other one on the base, was single-storey and as featureless as any bunker. They passed communications rooms where staff sat cradled in padded lounge chairs. These people seemed to be staring off into the middle distance, but unless Dev was very much mistaken, they were uplinked via commplant to radar arrays, data-collecting buoys and geostationary observation satellites all over Triton, monitoring the planet for security purposes. There were a few floatscreens for general use, if imagery needed to be shared and communally examined. Otherwise the work was done inside people’s heads.
    At the epicentre of Station Ares lay the office of Captain Arkady Maddox. It was a bare space with no windows and not much in the way of ornamentation beyond a TerCon Marine flag on the wall and a floatscreen gif gallery of significant moments in the occupant’s life, which seemed to consist entirely of parades and medal presentation ceremonies.
    The man in charge of every Marine on Triton was in his mid-fifties, with hair the colour of iron and a grin that revealed teeth like ivory tombstones. Dev recognised in him the hardbitten, highly-decorated top-brass type he had come across countless times during the war, a gruff outward bonhomie masking a harsh, aggressive nature. His handshake was crushingly strong, less a greeting than a test of character.
    “Handler,” Maddox said. “Good to see you again. And